


Once More with Feeling

by yfere



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Fix-It of Sorts, Kaguya Never Happened, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Naruto Fails at History, Politics, Scheming, Slow Burn, Time Travel, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-12-12 07:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11732376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yfere/pseuds/yfere
Summary: Targeted by a seal meant to erase his existence, Naruto is thrown back in time to shortly after his birth, where he watches his and Kurama's deaths. They have one goal: to return to their own timeline, whatever it takes.





	1. Naruto's Death

**Author's Note:**

> I always told myself, "I'm not going to write a time travel fic! It's Not My Style." Then, of course, I wrote a time travel fic.

HIRUZEN

Hiruzen scooped up the tiny, cold thing in his arms, and unwrapped it with studied precision from the blanket it was swaddled in. He hated himself for it, the cold movements of his hands as they spread out the tiny limbs, but he had to do it. He had to check for something.

And there it was. The signs were unmistakable—Minato had successfully sealed the Nine Tails in the infant before he died. Before the babe died. So the Nine Tails was no more, until the nature chakra re-coalesced, which would take over a decade at least. They were saved.

 _At what cost?_ Hiruzen set the small corpse next to the bodies of the parents, who he’d stretched out flat on the ground while unburying the child. The scene was too terrible to leave be. From their position, it was plain they had been crouched over the infant, shielding it as they were impaled. Minato’s body showed traces of the use of the Death Reaper seal—an effort to save the child from the full chakra of the Nine Tails. Yet still, the one they’d sacrificed themselves protecting had died, either from the stress of the Sealing, or suffocated to death under the weight of its parents’ corpses.

 _Him, not it._ Hiruzen swallowed against the dry feeling clawing up his throat. Long years of war had taught him to distance himself, to view the dead as objects or potential tools in prolonged combat. He realized with a sinking heart that it was the same even now, even when it was his beloved mentee and his family who were lying like broken dolls on the ground. He was so sure it would have been different. But when he searched inside himself, he didn’t feel grief—just a yawning, horrible emptiness. _I know now that I am lost,_ he thought.

Hiruzen squeezed his eyes shut and tried to summon up an image of them as they were living—Minato’s easy smile, Kushina’s loud laughter. He tried to remember the name of the child—it would have to be put on the memorial stone with his parents. All three of them had died protecting Konoha, after all.

 _Naruto,_ Hiruzen remembered. The name of the protagonist in his student Jiraiya’s novel. The one who was supposed to end all war and violence. It wouldn’t be long before Jiraiya understood the truth as Hiruzen did. The violence went on and on, and would never end. After all, theirs was a world where deadly weapons were sealed into children and infants died war heroes. As it had always been.

 _Maybe Konoha wasn’t worth saving._ Hiruzen shook his head to rid himself of the thought, and pulled out a scroll to prepare the bodies for transport.

              NARUTO

Naruto was twenty kilometers away from the scene before he collapsed to his hands and knees again to vomit. This time, nothing came up but acid. After that, nothing. His vision was still black around the edges, but even though he felt close to passing out, the dry heaving had somehow helped clear his head. He knew exactly what to do.

He slammed his hands together. “Release!”

Then, louder. “Release! RELEASE!”

When nothing happened, he retreated back into his head, where Kurama was waiting, curled up in a ball and strangely silent.

“Why don’t you HELP me, Kurama, you know I’m no good with genjutsu!” Naruto shrieked. He hated how hysterical he sounded, but that was the POINT of having a partner, wasn’t it, so they could help each other fight and maybe not lie around watching their partner suffer under genjutsu.

Kurama curled in tighter on himself, and Naruto restrained the urge to kick him. Not that Kurama wouldn’t forgive him, probably, after he just _watched_ his _parents die_ in this horrid sadistic genjutsu he was trapped in. “Help me!” he insisted.

“I can’t,” Kurama whispered.

“What? I thought you weren’t affected by genjutsu put on me!” As he said it Naruto realized that he hadn’t, in fact, ever _asked_ if that was the case, or had the opportunity to test it. It had been only six months since the end of the war, after all, and this was the first major confrontation they’d been in since. He tried to will himself to calm down, and failed utterly. “Well, Kakashi or Sakura will come to bail us out any time now, right? They’ve done it before. We just have to sit tight here and—”

“Naruto,” Kurama said. His voice still sounded strange. And he rarely addressed Naruto by his name. “Think carefully. Who was the woman we were fighting? Was she a genjutsu specialist?”

“Well, _I_ don’t know! She had this creepy-ass seal, seals do all sorts of things—”

“Remember what she said before activating it?”

“Something about how Obito was right all along and I was the worst thing to happen to the world or something. I didn’t understand it. Hey, this must be something like Infinite Tsukuyomi! That would explain how detailed it is—”

“Naruto!” Kurama hissed in a breath. “She said she was going to erase you from existence. _Like you were never born._ The base for that seal wasn’t a genjutsu, it was a Space-Time jutsu. You saw it too. Recognize the similarities?”

Naruto _did_ remember the seal, or the two-thirds of it he managed to glimpse before it activated. He hadn’t thought about the base formula, but now that he did, his panic only mounted.

“I think she meant to put herself through it. She was near death, and might not have thought she had any other choice.”

“What are you saying?” Naruto whimpered.

“I felt myself die back there,” Kurama said. “No genjutsu could mimic that feeling, for no human would know how to create it. We’ve been thrown back in time.”


	2. The Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto pulls a prank and manages to get blamed for the Nine Tails attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s like a meet cute, minus the cute.

NARUTO

Kurama thought they should get more information, so he and Naruto took a half-day trip to a small farming community where they confirmed that yes, it was early October, and yes, it was 50ME, a little over 17 years before the date they’d woken up the day before.

The rice farmer who’d given Naruto the information had questions of her own, judging from the suspicious way she was squinting at him. “You’re one of those ninja types, aren’t you. But you aren’t from Konoha.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your headband is all wrong.” She aimed a wad of spit at a rock half a meter away. “Good thing you aren’t—they’ve been searching for deserters. Though I don’t think they’ll be any happier to see you, whatever you are.”

She paused, while Naruto fiddled with his Allied forces headband. Of course they wouldn’t recognize it—a relic from a war that hadn’t even started yet. He probably looked like some strange brand of foreign nin. _Not a good thing in Fire Country._

“If you’re as friendly as you say you are, you won’t ask for food or lodging from us,” the farmer continued with a grunt. “Every time a ninja has spent time here, someone’s field has ended up poisoned. Or worse.”

 _Worse_ was just over her shoulder, where her sling-wearing husband and a son with a head bandaged in rags were lugging a small body out of the rice paddy. Without a flak jacket, it was impossible to tell rank. But he was young. _And not powerful enough to bother with recovering the body._ Naruto shied from the thought, choosing instead to focus on the details. A kunai was still lodged in the boy’s jugular, though the blood had long since drained from the wound. No doubt this was one of the deserters the farmer had spoken of.

Every few feet the son paused to set the legs down and press at his head. Unable to watch any longer, Naruto jogged after them, throwing the sodden corpse over his shoulder.

“I can give him a proper burial, if you like,” he said quietly.

The son shook his head fiercely, grimacing through the pain it caused him. “He was my _friend,_ ” he said. “And he’d be _alive_ if it weren’t for you _trash shinobi._ Give him _back._ ”

The father could no longer help carry the body, so Naruto supported the shoulders and back while the son continued to inch their way forward carrying the legs. He refused his offer to help dig the grave.

It was early evening before he was back on his way. Despite her gruffness and hard looks, the farmer had placed some onigiri in his pack while his back was turned. It occurred to Naruto that this was the only food he had for the foreseeable future. He had no place to sleep. And while he _could_ rough it out in the wilderness for a time, it was hardly ideal. He thought of his apartment back in Konoha—

—then of the still, grayish foot poking out from under his mother’s red hair. It had somehow blended in with the image of the body by the paddies, until he imagined kunai sticking out of his father’s neck and the smell of wet decay. _I can’t sleep like this._

Kurama was above petty concerns like food and rest, however, and was niggling at the back of his mind about a _plan._ Figuring it was better than trying to sleep, Naruto settled himself in a comfortable bough and let himself fall into Kurama’s space.

“We should return to Konoha,” the fox rumbled.

“You’re the one who said we should leave Konoha. Why are we going back now?” Naruto was too tired to even feel indignant.

“The problem was you wanted to stroll in and start asking questions, when the village had just, in all likelihood, suffered an attack from yours truly. We need to go back so we can steal the scrolls on sealing.”

Naruto picked up on what he was getting at. “If a Seal got us into this, we might be able to use a Seal to get back out,” he said. “I only have rudimentary knowledge of Sealing techniques, so that makes sense. It would be better to find a Sealing Master, though, and there aren’t any in Konoha. But—” An image of tangled red hair flashed again through his mind. “We just saw ourselves _die_. Wouldn’t that… if we go back to the future…”

“Is that something you’re willing to assume without investigating further?” Kurama’s tails lashed, and Naruto’s eyes widened. _He’s just as upset as I am about this._ Though he couldn’t imagine why.

“We don’t need to steal them.”

“Of course we don’t. You can introduce yourself to the Hokage, hope nobody tries to kill you, manage to get yourself promoted to jounin—good luck with that—then get high enough security clearance to freely access the forbidden scrolls on sealing techniques you _need_ to know as soon as possible. Or you can steal them. Which sounds better?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid,” Naruto said. Yet against all reason, he could feel his mood lifting. “Fine. While we’re there, I’ll need to pick up a Bingo Book.”

KAKASHI

There was another chakra signature in his house. The traps by the window and doors remained intact, meaning that either they’d been disabled and reassembled to conceal the intruder’s passage, or that they had found some way to bypass them entirely.

A low thrum of unease settled within Kakashi as he crept along the foyer. The manor was too large—he’d known that for years. It was fundamentally insecure, filled with too many openings to reasonably defend, and too many crannies where enemies could lurk and hide. He’d been looking into getting a small, single bed apartment—one door, one window, no room to hide—but he could never manage to begin the paperwork for renting. It was almost like he was waiting for something. _Yes, waiting to be ambushed in my own home,_ he thought ruefully.

The intruder wasn’t making much of an effort to conceal themselves. Even without using the Sharingan Kakashi could sense a _pressure_ of chakra, one that was strangely familiar, yet also entirely alien. He briefly uncovered the Sharingan to confirm that there was, in fact, one intruder, and not two with one masking their chakra and lying in wait. He covered up his eye again. Unless the situation became dire, it was best not to use it for too long. It was possible the intruder wasn’t even hostile—after Kakashi had entered ANBU, he’d undergone worse hazing than having a lone ninja show up in his house.

But enemy or not, he couldn’t be tolerant of home-invaders. Even Guy had come to understand that, though it took four months of near-death experiences with Kakashi’s traps to get the message. So Kakashi slipped a senbon with a moderate-strength paralytic out of the cushioned sheath of his glove into his palm, and glided over to his bedroom, where the chakra pressure was emanating from.

A short man was leaning over the photograph collection on his desk. He turned slightly in the moonlight, and Kakashi mentally revised his first impression. A _teen_ was looming over his photograph collection, fingers brushing over his team photo. A teen with blond hair, a strange forehead protector, an eerily familiar face and blue eyes that were _boring straight into him._

_Shit._

He threw his senbon on reflex, evidently surprising the other shinobi, who only dodged one. The second left a long, shallow gash on his cheek. _Only a matter of time._ Kakashi retreated into the hallway, but the strange shinobi didn’t pursue. Instead he smiled broadly, and began talking long after the paralytic should have begun kicking in.

“Hello!” he said, clapping his gloved hands together. That’s when Kakashi realized. Those were _his_ gloves. As was the flak jacket. In fact, save for the forehead protector, everything the other shinobi was wearing belonged to him. “I needed to borrow some things of yours, hope you don’t mind me dropping in.”

The paralytic wasn’t working. The shinobi was still jabbering about _not being a burglar really,_ and _extenuating circumstances,_ and _not_ dropping bonelessly to the floor like he was supposed to. _Was the cut not deep enough?_

Kakashi flew back into the room with a roundhouse kick, and began one of the most surreal hand-to-hand fights of his shinobi career.

It wasn’t that the other shinobi was poor in taijitsu—he was obviously very skilled, if not at the level of Kakashi’s more frequent sparring partner, Guy. The strange thing was that he seemed to know what movements Kakashi was going to make before he moved a muscle, and had a perfectly-formed counter prepared every time. He didn’t even seem to be expending much effort on it. _A doujutsu user?_ Feet firmly attached to the ceiling, Kakashi rose his hand to begin uncovering his forehead protector, only to be wrenched from the ceiling and caught in the grip of the other shinobi.

“Sorry,” his enemy said, sounding sheepish. “I really did need your things. My clothing was all torn up. And then I thought I’d like to see you.”

“I’m flattered. Who are you?” Kakashi kept his voice light and relaxed while he looked for openings. His enemy’s grip was strong enough, but his form was mediocre, and Kakashi had already palmed two more senbon coated with his strongest paralytic. Within thirty seconds it could paralyze from the neck down, and would last for six hours on the hardiest of ninja. Even if the impossible happened and the other shinobi didn’t drop, they were in close enough quarters that Kakashi could likely manage to puncture an artery. Passing out from blood loss would make him just as immobile as a paralytic would.

“Ummm,” the other ninja was saying. “I’m…Tanin. Yeah. Tanin. Sorry for barging—”

The grip became ever so slightly weaker as the shinobi talked. With a serpentine twist, Kakashi broke his hold on him, turning in one smooth motion to slam his senbon into—yes! A direct hit!

“Oof,” the ninja who called himself Tanin said, before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi just gaped, one hand grabbing ineffectually at the rapidly-dissipating white cloud. It was a shadow clone, no doubt about it. Had he substituted himself with a clone during their confrontation? Kakashi would have noticed if he made any seals. It had to have been a clone the entire time—but that was impossible! The chakra he sensed from it was far too dense!

He’d need to inform the Hokage of this as soon as possible. But when Kakashi tried to climb to the window, he found his legs weren’t working properly anymore. He stumbled forward, his hand leaving a smear of blood on the windowsill when he clutched it for balance.

 _My finger._ Kakashi stared at the small dot of blood swelling around the inside of his middle finger. No doubt it was just the change in resistance as the clone vanished, but accidental or not, Kakashi had been nicked by his own senbon. He reached for the pocket containing his antivenom, but his arm only flopped uselessly, like an overcooked noodle. He hadn’t noticed it fast enough.

 _What a stupid fucking mistake,_ Kakashi thought, before he collapsed.

oOo

Was it embarrassing for a top ANBU officer to report what was essentially a small burglary and a self-inflicted injury to the Hokage’s office? Absolutely. But with it being a strange nin, and with the attack of the Nine Tails so recent, it would be borderline treasonous not to report what, in the end, amounted to a breach in the Village’s security. So Kakashi kept his head down and pretended he didn’t hear the Third’s chuckle when he began his report.

“What is the description of the ninja who attacked you?”

“Blonde, 166 centimeters, around 51 kilograms and in his mid-to late teens. He was wearing my clothing and a forehead protector that read ‘Shinobi.’ I was the one who launched the attack, but the presence of the clone and his attempts to restrain me lead me to believe he wasn’t interested in an altercation. Still, I was able to confirm he is skilled in taijutsu and has unusually dense chakra. He called himself Tanin.”

The Third’s face grew more serious. Kakashi was certain they were thinking the same thing—if the nin took the trouble to leave a clone behind, his presence must have been meant as a message. What kind of a message it was, Kakashi couldn’t begin to guess.

“That certainly doesn’t match the description of any of the village ninja or academy students,” the Third acknowledged. “What items were taken?”

“A basic set of clothing, flak jacket, four packs of kunai, three packs of senbon, one pack of exploding tags, wire, a cargo scroll, twenty ink cartidges, twelve blank scrolls, and 6,000 ryo. Everything stolen was basic shinobi equipment which could be found in any supply store, save for my Bingo Book.”

“He took your Bingo Book?” The Third’s frown deepened. “Did he leave anything behind?”

“No. There were no additional traps or items left in my home. I had Pakkun search for a set of discarded clothing to track, but it was either destroyed or he brought it with him.”

“Give me a more detailed description of the twelve stolen scrolls.”

 _What?_ “They were basic writing scrolls bought in the Konoha General Weapon Supply Store. All were thirty-six centimeters by one hundred twenty centimeters, with maple rods and ivory mitsumatagami paper. Four had red edging, and the rest blue.”

The Third nodded, and arose from his chair. “I would like you to follow me.”

Within moments, Kakashi was accompanying the Third into the room of the Hokage Tower where the Forbidden Techniques were stored. A team Kakashi recognized as being from the Intelligence Division were already milling about the room, poking at scrolls.

“Yamanaka-san, please hand me the Scroll of Sealing.”

A diminutive woman from the Yamanaka clan lugged over the scroll, thumping it carelessly on the table. Kakashi flinched at the ill treatment, but the Third seemed unfazed. The older man’s fingers tapped the seal holding the scroll shut.

“This is a Henge scroll,” he told Kakashi, “that is still being maintained. As is one other kinjutsu scroll we’ve located—we may find more. At this point, without knowledge of where the perpetuator is, we will have to wait for it to drop to find _what_ has been transformed. You were to be briefed with your colleagues within the hour, but I suspect we may find a few of your missing scrolls when this is done.”

Kakashi nodded. The Third had a mind that cut quickly to the most simple solution for a problem, and it was indeed unlikely that the appearance of a burglar shinobi and the theft of Village documents were unrelated. He picked up the scroll, and had to whistle at the quality of the jutsu. While it was easier to transform like objects into like, it was amazing to find a shinobi capable of maintaining so perfect an outer transformation, over so long a period a time, and who knew how great a distance. It was the type of feat that required lifelong practice and use of the Transformation technique. Kakashi had only heard of a handful, like Tsunade, who could manage it.

Transforming the outside of a scroll to resemble another was one thing. Transforming what was _inside_ the scroll, on the other hand… “Were they blank inside?” He imagined that’s how the fake scrolls were discovered.

Prompted by the Third’s nod, the small Yamanaka piped up. “They were filled with text, so when I was doing inventory following the Nine Tails attack, I nearly missed it. But look.” With another careless motion, she spread out the first half-meter of the scroll for them to see.

“They’re passages from Jiraiya’s _Tales of a Gutsy Ninja,_ ” the Third said quietly. Kakashi, who had been marveling over the addition of text to the scheme, felt his blood run cold. The Yamanaka cataloger continued, heedless of the change in the atmosphere.

“Fortunately, this gives us a potential lead on the thief. Jiraiya-sama’s book sold very poorly, and since the thief is familiar with the work, we’d start with friends and acquaintances before moving on to other known buyers.”

Kakashi grimaced. _He_ was familiar with the book, and the transformed scrolls probably came from _his_ house. Was the strangely cheerful ninja he’d fought trying to _frame_ him? Why would he do that? How would he _know_ to do that? He imagined the ninja sitting on his bed, reading through the books from his bookshelf while searching for the hidden compartment that housed his Bingo Book. Was it possible to memorize a book so quickly? Nothing seemed too far-fetched, after the night he’d had.

Luckily, the Hokage was there to pull Kakashi back to reality. “There is one possibility that concerns me,” he said, gesturing for Kakashi to once again follow him.

When they’d secured the entrances to the Hokage’s office, the Third continued. “It’s the Nine Tails attack. Before this incident, I’d intended to begin an investigation.”

“An investigation?”

“The Hokage and his logical successor were killed in battle, with the precision of an assassination. The Nine Tails launched a surprisingly single-minded attack on Konoha, and caused such widespread destruction that the collected manuscripts of the Village had to be moved to their underground location. Based on your timeline, they were taken while in transit back to the Sealing Room.”

“You believe this was orchestrated.”

“If you think me paranoid, you are free to speak your mind.” Kakashi remained silent, and the Third sighed. “The truth is, I only have suspicions—suspicions that could very well be wrong. The villagers are already pointing fingers at the Uchiha, but as you well know, the Clan are not the only faction with Sharingan capable of controlling the beast. I will be dispatching ANBU teams to investigate potential security breaches around Village borders. I want you to do something else for me. I want you to do this because I believe it is already expected of you, but more than that, because the Fourth trusted you.”

 _For all the good it did anyone._ “I will do it,” Kakashi said.

“Good. You are to join Danzo’s Root and investigate the Nine Tails attack, as well as potential collaboration between Root and the missing-nin Orochimaru.”

NARUTO

“Our target is Orochimaru,” Naruto decided, snapping the book shut. Falling back into Kurama’s space had become easier after the war, and easier still now, when he was putting so much practice in. He couldn’t help it, really. The loneliness of the last few days was beginning to gnaw at him, with his clone’s visit with Kakashi only serving as a brief respite. He needed to talk to someone. Anyone. If he didn’t, he felt like he’d disappear.

Luckily, Kurama wasn’t asleep, and so didn’t berate Naruto for interrupting a nap. The snark remained regardless. “What, exactly, was the point of getting that Bingo Book if you already had your target picked out?”

“There was a chance I could find a Seal Master in here, or someone with solid connections to one. _Or_ someone could have had a much higher bounty. I need money if I’m going to be able to do anything about this, after all.”

“You just didn’t remember when Orochimaru left the village, did you?”

“Shut up! That’s not true.”

“Ha!” Kurama crowed. “I can _sense_ you _lying_.”

“Okay, but think about it—from what Sasuke told me, Orochimaru had a huge library, and probably more knowledge than anyone on Sealing techniques. He did that shady wing-hand thing, after all. _And_ he has an insanely high bounty on his head. It’s killing two birds with one stone.”

“I suspect there’s a third bird,” Kurama said. “You hate the guy.”

“He _deserves_ to be _dead._ ”

“What’s funny is that he hasn’t even done the thing you hate him for. Yet, anyway.”

“He experiments on people!”

“But that’s not really what you hate him for.” Kurama sighed wistfully. “I kind of liked him, actually. He always worked you up into a nice frothing rage—”

Naruto slammed the door on his inner mind. As nice as it was to talk, Kurama often made a terrible conversation partner. As most of his fond memories coincided with Naruto’s worst, mutual reminiscing was unpleasant at best.

Still. Naruto’s fingers curled over the cover of the Bingo Book, and he realized he was happy. They were _going_ to kill Orochimaru, finally, they were _going_ to learn everything there was to know about Sealing, and they were _going_ to make it home. Nothing could stop them. Believe it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite this being a time-travel fic, I am playing it kind of fast and loose with canon events & timing #artisticlicense #noregrets. Please let me know what you think!


	3. Undercover: Loyalties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi both averts and assists an assassination. Naruto attempts to make a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is mostly written, and in the one after that Naruto and Kakashi will (finally) reunite! Sparks will fly, and/or arterial blood. Meanwhile, I hope these two chapters still entertain. Please let me know what you think!

KAKASHI

_I’m asking you to do this because I believe it’s already expected of you…_

So the Hokage knew that Danzo had already made the offer, or at least suspected it. Did he know he accepted? If so, why he would trust such a mission to him of all people, when he’d already been hoping— _hoping_ that Danzo was planning on an assassination?

_The Fourth trusted you._

Safely away from the briefing room, Kakashi’s hands clutched at his thighs. The bodies had been made available to the Medical Corps for inspection before they were again sealed and taken into storage, but he had managed to steal a glance at the reports. Both impaled cleanly and brutally through the chest,  _with the precision of an assassination._ Not unlike when he—

Maybe the Fourth hadn’t trusted him after all. If he had, Kakashi would have been at that cave with them when Kushina was giving birth. She was his  _mission._ They both were. But Minato had passed him over that day, and Hiruzen had kept him away from the main battlefield after the Nine Tails broke free. Perhaps they’d thought it’d be better not to have the  _Friend-Killer_  around on the front lines. Or—but that was useless thinking. He pushed it aside, to a corner of his mind that was becoming more and more crowded with what he didn’t want to face.

Hokages and wannabe Hokages were all useless creatures, Kakashi decided. Either they died too early to do any good or they lived too long, becoming preoccupied with playing with shinobi’s lives in their power games with each other. Either Hiruzen or Danzo was a traitor, but Kakashi didn’t owe his allegiance to either of them. His loyalty was buried deep in the earth, was guarded by stone. So he would investigate, as the Third requested, and he would spy as Danzo would have him do. But when it was time to act, he wouldn’t do it for their sake. He was already scum as a shinobi. What could disobeying a few more orders do?

oOo

When he made his way to Danzo to report, he was immediately attacked. Thick spears of wood— _wood?_ —arrowed towards his vital organs, and it was only thanks to a well-placed kick that he managed to halt his fall and stick himself to the nearest wall. Panicked thoughts whirled within him. Did Danzo know? Was his mission over before it had truly begun? He outstretched his palm, then hesitated.

The boy who attacked him had no such hesitations. He flung his arm out, and it was lost in a coursing river of wood, aimed again at Kakashi. It was somewhat gruesome to watch.  _But I can see through it,_ he realized, with relief. This time his dodge was neater, and with the familiar hard hum of electricity in his hand he rushed towards his target—

—only for Danzo to order them to halt. But Kakashi’s chakra had already stilled, the instant he heard Danzo’s foot connect with the wood of the pavilion. He had to be careful about his reaction time with Chidori, now more than ever.

“I asked him to come,” Danzo told the boy—Kinoe—a quiet edge of displeasure in his voice. From Kakashi’s kneeling position, he could feel acutely the presence of several other shinobi, lurking in the shadows of the compound. If Danzo gave the order, he would be overwhelmed. Was the attack just now a demonstration? Was the boy some kind of overzealous bodyguard?

Setting his questions aside for the moment, he gave his report. Danzo appeared as perturbed by the news of the foreign nin as the Third, though he said little on the subject beyond inquiring how many ANBU had been dispatched on the recovery mission for the scrolls. Kakashi continued, noting how many ANBU and jounin were sent on the border inspection, ordinary missions, and how many were to accompany the Third on his journey to the capital to formalize his reinstatement as Hokage. The more he spoke, the clearer it was to Kakashi just how thinly they were spread. From the slight curl of Danzo’s lip, he was thinking the same.

“So he  _strips_  the village of its protections following the loss of the Nine Tails, and now with this fresh evidence of the inadequacy of his current defenses.”

It was a fair assessment, though it stung. Kakashi kept his head down until he was dismissed, then, flanked by two members of Root, proceeded to the room where he was to be Sealed and his appointment, at least in the eyes of Danzo, formalized.

Kinoe was one of the ones sent to accompany him. If possible, he looked smaller up close. Kakashi barked out a laugh. “Ah, my attacker come to escort me?”

“I apologize for earlier,” the small shinobi said. “I was not meant to attack.”

 _His voice is as wooden as the rest of him,_ Kakashi thought. “Meaning someone else was? Or were you concerned after hearing rumors of Friend-Killer Kakashi?” His voice was too thin to really carry the joke, but he let it stand.

“I don’t see why that would be a problem,” Kinoe said. “The truth is, I knew you weren’t part of Root yet, and just like ANBU, we’re not to allow outsiders into headquarters. I thought—”

“Danzo doesn’t test us with false orders,” the other Root member intoned, with curt finality.

“You mean he doesn’t test—” Kinoe’s shoulders tensed, but he halted whatever argument he was going to make “Regardless, you were impressive, Sharingan-san. It’s good you aren’t dead.” Kakashi watched how Kinoe and the other Root member leaned away from each other, and wondered at the aborted statement.  _Either this is an issue in the pecking order, or he’s caught on to how he shouldn’t be talking to me until my tongue can no longer betray what I hear._ Not that it mattered. Kakashi had already seen something far more interesting—the existence of a strange Kekkei Genkai, that he’d only heard of in half-buried memories of his father, reading him fairy tales about times before there were villages. If only he could remember—but then, they hadn’t been concerned with teaching history during the war. Kakashi could feel his feet slipping into the pool of his ignorance, and he didn’t even know the depth.

The boy Kinoe probably wasn’t the only one. The Sharingan still burned above his cheek, a perpetual, feeble rejection of the eye by the rest of his flesh. Danzo could be stockpiling people with Kekkei Genkai and rare genetic abilities. It’s what Kakashi would do, if he were planning a coup. And any one of them could prove a link to Orochimaru, a link to the Nine Tails.

They had reached the compound’s sealing room. The Sealing itself was comfortable, a procedure almost as familiar as getting his teeth checked at the outpatient clinic. The only real difference was that this one had been adapted for permanent use, and there was a chance he’d received a paralytic instead of the histamine.  _More likely the paralytic._ It was easier to signal distress with the histamine, even if it was deadlier. But both were useless against premeditated treachery. Kinoe and the senior Root member looked coldly down on him throughout, and he stared back, just as cold.

 _I will find out what you all are,_ Kakashi promised himself. Tongue still tacky and sore from the seal, he smiled. The hunt had begun.

KURAMA

There were, in Kurama’s view, three types of prey in a hunt. One runs, and keeps running until their pursuer gives up the chase for an easier meal. Another hunkers down in some safe hole and hides.

The third, of course, is a fox.

The brat’s clone gave a goofy salute before flickering away towards the land of Rice Paddies. The brat himself departed the opposite direction, where, at a combined inn and bathhouse between the capital and Konoha, he hoped to win himself a job through one of the most shameless sob stories Kurama had heard conceived of by man. That, and the exaggerated body proportions of the Transformation he was using.

It was a simple plan, but efficient, and it gave Kurama some slight pride to see the brat come up with it on his own. Since the more they moved the more likely they were to be ambushed by whatever ANBU were sent after them, all the risk of capture was put on the clone. Konoha would doubtless expect the scroll thief to leave the country, making it wiser to leave the clone with tasks that involved travelling while they stayed in Fire Country. The clone could then investigate areas the snake had been involved with and find if they yet existed or could provide clues to his location, while also acting to throw off their pursuit. If the clone was captured or fell in battle, nothing was truly lost, but there was potential to gain valuable information.

The Transformation made sense too, in its way. It was closely related to the brat’s most familiar Transformation, so the “Asa-chan” disguise could be maintained with the least amount of strain. And from Kurama’s understanding of human behavior around their area, strange single men were regarded with fear and suspicion, while women generally passed unnoticed, or were objects of pity. It was for that reason that, to his knowledge, female shinobi took up the majority of spying and infiltration missions.

What Kurama couldn’t understand was the brat’s determination to go to that  _specific_  inn, when camping out in a cave and foraging as he studied would be safer. Was it loneliness? The familiar pulling sensation that was growing progressively harder and deeper, until Kurama couldn’t tell if it really came from outside himself, and which led the brat to setting the ANBU on their tails in the first place? When he ventured to ask, he was just met with annoyance.

“This is the inn where Yukimi-chan worked,” the brat sighed, when Kurama finally managed to needle a straight response. “Remember her? Ero-Sennin’s favorite informant? If she’s there, and we can find some work, then maybe we can get some information from her. If not, we have a safe house for cover anyway. You really don’t remember anything useful, do you?”

Kurama pillowed his head on his paws. “Your life isn’t that interesting,” he said. “I don’t watch it closely.”

He didn’t bring up the very real possibility that the informant wouldn’t be found there, fourteen years before the brat met her for the first time. The aching pull was almost dizzying in its severity, and Kurama was loath to do anything to make it worse. Instead, although he wasn’t used to it, and hardly knew what he was doing, he tried to feed some semblance of peace back into his host. He wasn’t sure if it helped.

The pace they kept was punishingly slow. A travelling shinobi could be identified by their speed before anything else, but rather than accepting the risk and relying on Sage Mode to detect enemies as they travelled, the brat opted to crawl along with the maintained Transformation, studying the beginner’s sealing scrolls he’d taken during their infrequent break periods. The three other scrolls remained unopened for the time being, although as a sort of ritual the brat would take them out before each study break. It was like he was afraid they would disappear, and the silver scroll he handled with particular reverence, although Kurama couldn’t imagine why. The pull was always the worst when the scroll was out, but the brat was completely unresponsive to any questions about it.

In the end, keeping the pace slow wasn’t an unwise decision. It was Kurama’s responsibility to continue feeding chakra into the two jutsu as the brat slept, and any additional strains from having used nature chakra would have compounded the difficulty of that task. But with the constant nauseating pull, and the brat’s irritating secretiveness, it was an excruciating journey. The inn/bathhouse was a welcome sight when it finally appeared before them.

As it turned out, the brat didn’t even need the sob story to get the job.

“The truth is, we’re short-handed,” the owner, a grey haired, matronly woman said. “A whole series of disasters came our way, so your timing couldn’t have been better, Asa-chan.”

They were led into the inn section, and the place indeed looked the worse for wear. Dust bunnies were piled in the corners of some of the rooms, and Kurama could detect the faint smell of mildew.

“There is an issue with the pay,” the woman was saying. “We have only a few live-in employees, so if you want food and board here I’m afraid we can only pay you a very small allowance. It will pay for clothing and some small medical expenses. Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all,” the brat said, sounding grateful.

“You can either sleep in a communal room with three of our other girls, or, if you’re up for extra responsibility and a little extra pay, you can board with Yukimi-chan in the attic. She’s—ill, and needs assistance with getting food, washing, and—other daily tasks. You can change your mind about rooming arrangements at any time.”

The brat, as per usual, completely failed to suppress his surprise. “Yukimi-chan?”

“I don’t know her last name,” the woman said. Her eyes narrowed with, if Kurama wasn’t mistaken, killing intent. “Why, do you know her?”

“I doubt it,” the brat said faintly, and the woman’s face cleared a fraction. “I’ll room with her. It’s just that I had a friend with that name once.”

HIRUZEN

He and Danzo had been friends once, Hiruzen reminded himself. It felt necessary to remember this, and it had become a sort of incantation he recited to himself for times like this, when his young assassin-turned-spy crouched before him, medical ninja by his side to assist in case of a seal-based emergency.

He and Danzo had been friends once. What they were now, he couldn’t say.

Hatake Kakashi’s update on the investigation was brief and cryptic. First, a request for all records related to Konoha and Fire Country's Kekkei Genkai, past and present, to be made available to him. After that, a recommendation to delay the trip to the daimyo for a month.

The first request was achievable, if unsettling. The second was impossible. The longer the village went without an official Hokage, the more fractious the village would become under his governance, and the weaker they would be to outside threat. His authority as the former Hokage was holding the village tethered together in the tumult of Minato and Kushina’s death, but only just. The jounin had elected him, but without his reinstatement made official—

“What is the basis of this recommendation?” he asked. He had to.

“ANBU and jounin forces are overextended with the attack on the village, the theft, and the ongoing conflict with Kumo,” his spy said. “Our situation is precarious. I believe should you leave now, you are likely to be attacked by foreign shinobi. I have no actionable intelligence. These are—my own thoughts.”

“I have not asked you to act as my military advisor,” Hiruzen said sharply.

“Even so.” Was that a steely glint in his eye, behind the mask? “That is my recommendation.”

After dismissing the young shinobi, Hiruzen swung his chair back to the window overlooking Konoha, his bones heavy and cold in the way they always were before a battle.

Kekkei Genkai—was it the Sharingan after all? Hiruzen knew Hatake’s knowledge of the dojutsu was spotty, a process of trial and error due mostly to the Uchiha’s reluctance to teach their techniques to outsiders. Those documents were for the Hokage and the Clan’s eyes only, at least under normal circumstances. But needing to know of other Kekkei Genkai, and the insistence that Hiruzen not leave the village—it seemed almost like something larger was brewing, and Hiruzen did not like the feel of it. If he and Danzo were once friends, why did it seem like they were inching closer and closer to killing each other?

Hiruzen extended one long finger and began counting the buildings in his view, thrown into relief by the red sunset spilling over the raised crest of the village limits. The beginnings of new construction were everywhere in the aftermath of the Nine Tails attack, the intact buildings far fewer in number. Fewer than he had even thought. The light flowed violently over the crumpled skeletons of damaged family homes, and his finger hesitated over them. He let it drop, and, taking a shaking breath, curled it back into his palm. He’d begun the exercise years ago to help quell his anxieties, and, for the first time, it had failed him.

Defeated, he turned back to his desk, and began the process of deciding who he was willing to sacrifice.

KAKASHI

He had predicted Danzo.

The mission call came with almost no time to prepare. There was the mission briefing, and then immediately the transition to slipping into the provided Kumo gear, adjusting the mask. The pre-mission rituals of preparation felt much the same as they always had, save for the too-human contours of his new mask, and the surprising whiteness of his jacket when he looked down. His fingers hesitated, as they always did, over the hilt of the tanto, before he reached behind it for the food pills to complete his supplies. Authentic or no, he would be leaving that blade behind.

They were one of two groups of eight, with three lightning natures among each to make the initial attack and, if necessary, to disguise wounds. Kakashi suspected that was the only reason he’d been informed of this particular mission. The more he knew of Danzo’s exact workings the more danger Danzo placed himself in should his spy be caught or prove treacherous. Still, Lightning natures were rare in Fire Country, rarer still in the ranks of ANBU and Root. Kakashi’s presence was in that sense essential, meaning that the mission could also function as a test of loyalty.  _Did the Third take that into account?_

Kakashi’s group lay in wait along the Third’s most likely path to the capital, while another tracked what was likely the Transformed diversionary group. As they waited, Kakashi catalogued what he knew of his companions. Three lightning natures, a medical nin, two unknowns carrying sealing scrolls for any bodies that fell in battle. Obito’s Sharingan, a Hyuga, and then the wood user, crouched close to his side. He was sticking abnormally close to Kakashi, either under orders from Danzo or because of the immediate group Kakashi was the closest to him in age. But despite the wood user being not more than ten years old, Kakashi could see why he was chosen for the mission. His presence was so completely masked by the surrounding forest he would be impossible to detect were it not for the steady whisper of his jacket brushing along Kakashi’s calf every time he inhaled.

Yes. As always Danzo’s reasoning was perfectly clear. As for the Third’s—Kakashi took a deep breath, inhaling the musty scent of decaying foliage, and willed his angry heart to still.  _I have not asked you to act as my military advisor,_ he had said, with an expression like Kakashi was an inanimate object that had, against all expectation, learned to talk. If he’d stayed silent, would it have made a difference? Or would he still be here, stuck playing this sick game of cho-han? The dice rattled endlessly around his mind—or was that his nerves?

 _Approaching,_ the Hyuga hand-signalled. Kakashi peeled his fingers from where they’d dug painfully into the bark, and got to work.

The first two fell to Chidori on his first pass. Out of the corner of his eye Kakashi could see the bloody stakes where the Third had been impaled—but no, it was a Transformed ANBU member after all. The dice stopped rattling and settled on odd. He’d lost the bet—it was to be a massacre.

A faint flash caught his attention, and he just managed to put a hand up to block the sword that came bearing down on him. He felt his glove’s guard shatter under the force of the blow, and cast the glove aside as he leapt back, before the fragments could dig into his hand to cause him any more damage. As it was, at least one metacarpal had been broken.

Kakashi didn’t like swordsmen as a general rule. They had a longer reach than he did, and depending on their level of talent, and how dogged their pursuit as Kakashi tried to put distance between them, even with the Sharingan Kakashi would be forced to play a game of endurance with them, waiting until one or the other got too slow and could slip under the other’s guard for a lethal blow.

Yet this time it only took a few harrowing minutes of dodging and a risky parry with a kunai before he realized— _he knew this pattern._ Somehow, his body already knew what to do, without their aid of the eye, or even conscious thought. The sword-user seemed to feel a sense of familiarity as well, shifting their stance and preparing to unleash a barrage of blows Kakashi already knew, instinctively, that he couldn’t defend against. It was a crucial moment, and he’d die if he let it go to waste. He closed, second Chidori in hand, as the sword user slashed forward to disembowel him. The blade came up too short, and the Chidori speared through the ANBU’s heart.

The sword thumped to the ground, looking strangely short when still and up close—closer to Root’s tanto than the ANBU katana. Without chakra to hold it in place, the mask fell away as well, revealing a thin face framed by long purple hair.  _Yugao._

_So you’re Friend-Killer Kakashi after all… Captain._

Did she manage to whisper to him before she died, or had he imagined it?

The battle was over, the fifth ANBU impaled by Kinoe’s wood as the fake Third had been. The medical nin tugged Kakashi’s hand away from Yugao’s corpse and mended the throbbing injury while another sealed the body away. A few feet away, the other sealer lit the remains of Kinoe’s jutsu in a controlled fire.

He couldn’t stop staring at his hand. It was clean, unblemished, and now, no longer even in pain. Chidori never left blood on the hand, as the electricity cauterized flesh even as it ripped it apart. But in the eye of his Sharingan it looked red, red, red.   _Friend-Killer Kakashi._  The words echoed around his head. He wanted to cover his ears, but he couldn’t, daren’t touch them like this. Where had his glove gone? Didn’t he always have it on?

“As expected of the famous Hero of the Sharingan.” Kinoe’s deadened voice beside him. Guiltily, gingerly, Kakashi shoved his hand in his pocket. “It looks like only the two of us were really needed for this mission. We make a good team.”

“You would have needed the rest of us if we were facing the Third,” one of the lightning-natured members said, irritated. “You were meant to hang back while we three engaged.”

“I saw an opening before you engaged. Now we can move forward and act as reinforcements for the other team, if there’s still time. How about it, Senpai?”

Senpai—he was talking to  _him._ It was nauseating. Rather than acknowledge him, Kakashi kept his eyes trained on the ground. Their patch of forest had been completely cleared by the body sealer, and once they left, there would be no signs there had ever been a conflict. Just as there was no blood on his hand.  _I made the wrong choice,_ he thought, feverishly.  _Always, always the wrong choice. I thought it was a game of cho-han, but there were more than two choices. I shouldn’t have taken the bet. I thought—I would have—_

Kakashi roved over the area with the Sharingan, trying in vain to find something, a purple hair, a fragment of a uniform. He was leaving the eye open and uncovered for far too long, and combined with his quick sequence of Chidori, darkness was already creeping along the edges of his vision. The exhaustion was coming on fast—much faster than usual. He didn’t care enough to stop.

“Senpai?” Kinoe said.

“Sorry,” he slurred. “I seem to have exhausted my chakra supply.”

It was technically true. His vision swam, and he blacked out.

NARUTO

Naruto had thought it would be simple, to work as Asa-chan in the inn and bathhouse, and help Yukimi with her care routines when he finished his other tasks for the day. Or, if not simple, at least worthwhile. It was in exchange for information and a safe place to study the scrolls during the nighttime, after all.

That was before he met—re-met?—Yukimi. She was almost completely non-communicative, rude when she did communicate, and spent the first few days since Naruto moved in sleeping instead of doing anything that resembled intelligence gathering. It  _was_ the same Yukimi, Naruto was sure—the freckles, the hair, everything was the same, save for the absence of some wrinkles and the fact that  _this_ Yukimi was so emaciated Naruto imagined he could see her lungs fluttering beneath her thin blouse every time she took a breath.  _Like Nagato._ He shied from the thought. Whatever time he’d come in at, it had to be the wrong time for what he needed to know. Still, he stayed, and pored over scrolls by candlelight as she slept. Even if it was the wrong time—this wasn’t something he could just watch. Not when it was happening right in front of him.

The other girls had been quick to share gossip with him when they heard he’d volunteered to bring Yukimi meals and do her laundry. From what they told him, she’d been there for five months, with just under two spent in the attic room. She had not spoken to any visitors. She had not made any friends. Two of the three live-in employees had formerly had Naruto’s job of looking after her, and the picture they painted was not sympathetic.

“It’s not worth the money Asa-chan,” Hotaru, the friendliest of them confided. “She’s an utter bitch. No one’s even lasted a full week with her. There was actually a third girl who quit working here entirely because of her.”

“You noticed she dumps out the food you give her, right?” Nobara said. “She’s not sick—she just won’t eat. One time I asked her about it, and that night she dumped it in my  _bed._  We had stew that night. There were  _chunks._ ”

Naruto had noticed, and, like so many things, it confused him. He hadn’t known Yukimi for long, it was true, but the Yukimi he had known was reserved, but  _kind._ Not at all like this snappy, unfriendly presence, who made the stuffy attic feel like an icebox and who religiously disposed of three-fourths of the meals Naruto brought from the kitchens. She rebuffed all of Naruto’s attempts to befriend her, and when he’d switched tactics to yelling, she just screamed right back, and demanded he move out to room with the other girls.

Naruto’s instinct with people like Yukimi was to beat some sense into them. To connect hearts by connecting fists. But whaling on a person who looked two inches from keeling over dead was—not his style. It was foreign territory. He didn’t know what to do. So after a certain point, they settled into an uneasy stalemate, with Yukimi continuing to stonewall him, and Naruto refusing to move out of the room.

It lasted only until bath day.

The owner who’d hired him—and kept a creepily close eye on him ever since—handed him the materials for a sponge bath on the weekend. After a long day of scrubbing the communal washrooms, Naruto looked at the buckets and sponges blankly.

“Did I miss a room?”

The owner rapped him on the top of his head. “No, idiot girl,” she said. “This is for Yukimi-chan. I’m sure you’ve noticed that she doesn’t bathe with you or the other girls. She’s too weak to make it without incident all the way to those washrooms you just cleaned out—hopefully thoroughly?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Naruto said.

“Good. So I want you to prepare this for her. Hot water in both buckets, but give them some time to cool afterwards. I already have the towels, sponges and soaps here.”

Those were all the instructions Naruto had. Was it really his fault what happened next?

Yukimi acted ordinary enough as he set up, staying sullenly silent as Naruto organized the towels next to her and tested the water. When it finally reached a comfortable temperature, he studied Yukimi’s back, and decided her hair was the best place to start. It was greasy and beginning to grow matted.

His fingers only just brushed against the hair at the back of her neck when she crushed his wrist in her grip, and threw him forward with a force that seemed frankly impossible given the state of her body. He turned back to her, and found the bedridden woman looked ready to tear out his throat.

“Easy, Yukimi-chan,” he said nervously. “I wasn’t even stripping you yet. Besides, we’re all girls, aren’t we?”

“Don’t you dare touch me, Asa-bitch,” she snarled. “I bathe  _myself._ I don’t need your help, just like I don’t need you sleeping in my fucking room. I’ve had it with you. Either you move out of my room  _tonight,_ or I’ll get you fired.”

And, as surreal as it was, that was that. The owner herself came to help him move out his sleeping mat, and only looked faintly apologetic as she did so. He’d all but lost access to Yukimi, who would now only allow meals to be left outside her door, and placed her laundry in the same place. And juggling his studying of Sealing between the sleeping schedules of the three other live-in employees was wreaking havoc on his health. It was becoming harder to maintain his cheerfulness, and he was being called less and less to directly serve customers because of it.  _When you act gloomy you put them off,_ Nobara told him frankly.

Not that the studying he managed seemed to be doing much good. A week after Yukimi banished him, he’d finished re-reading the two  _Introduction to Sealing_ scrolls, which had been even more heavily protected than Tobirama’s scroll. They’d been so well-hidden he’d thought they must be able to help, but none of them contained a single mention of time travel, or even anything vaguely connected to the concept. Frustrated, he wound again to the beginning of the first scroll, and for the umpteenth time read the prelude. In lettering so aged the ink barely stood out from the page, it read:

_Sealing: the art of enclosing one object in another. All Sealing formulas require just four components: one, a definition of the object to be enclosed; two, a definition of the enclosing object; three, the conditions of the enclosure; and four, the conditions for release. All formulas must be threaded with chakra power and control commiserate with the complication and difficulty of the conditions attached to it. With time and dedication, much can be accomplished through Sealing—and much can be undone. For no matter the power and control put into a formula, no Seal can be made unbreakable, as many dead, foolhardy shinobi will testify when Sealed into a container that allows them to speak._

That line always made him shudder. Despite the reassurance that his situation was reversible, it reminded him too clearly of the Reanimations he’d fought during the war—their black eyes, their grey, crumbling faces, the shuddering last breaths of the captives once the Reanimation was broken.

But that paragraph was where the helpfulness of the texts began and ended. The rest of that scroll, and the second, was entirely filled with  _box exercises,_ where flowers were meant to be placed into boxes, with instructions for increasingly complicated jutsu formulas to place on them. Naruto had faithfully followed the first fourteen or so exercises, replacing the box with Gama-chan and the flowers with his wages. But while it was fun to find he could lock the coin purse and open it with a pulse of chakra, or a whispered passcode—with some more effort he could even vanish the money entirely, just as with weapons in weapons scrolls—they didn’t provide any ideas for how to escape back home. Worse, the exercises required a horrible amount of memorization, and with his mind so burdened with the effort of learning what amounted to party tricks, it could be years before his understanding of sealing techniques would allow him to reach the end of the introductory scrolls exercises, let alone think up a formula to go forward again in time.

One sleepless night of mechanically opening and closing Gama-chan, a headache came on—a sure sign of a long-lasting clone being released. Naruto rubbed his temples as the memories filtered in, and, once they were all in order, bit his fist to keep from screaming.  _I found signs of a prolonged conflict in the Land of Rice Paddies, but no sign Orochimaru has been to the area. Konoha ANBU tracked me down before I could reach my next location, and I released myself rather than fight._

His chest was tight—it was hard to breathe. He punched the ground next to him hard enough to bruise _._ _Damn it!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That ends part one! Everyone is miserable, nothing makes sense. The Third may or may not even be alive. I'm sitting here biting my nails over this plot...
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER SPOILERS: Kakashi does some sleuthing and spends a lot of money, Naruto nearly gets decapitated, and Orochimaru is served a taste of his own medicine.


	4. On Haitus until June (Sorry!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not abandoning this story. Feel free to skip.

I've been putting this off for a while, sorry. But if anyone's wondering whether this story has been abandoned (after just three chapters!) the answer is NO. I just can't work on it right now.

So, uh. Lots of things happened since the last update. My house was wrecked (yay!), I added another major onto my first, discovered VERY LAST MINUTE I would prefer being a teacher rather than a lawyer, learned that more than my GPA mattered for getting into Masters programs (ie I need specific coursework), and added a fuck ton of credits to my remaining semesters so I can graduate on time, plus a six-week program in the mountains this May (with no internet! yay!) to cram in them English credits. This summer I will be completing that program, a lab job, hopefully a tutoring job, and studying for the GRE with all I've got. So, as much as I love this story, and plan to complete this story (I even have sequel ideas!), getting on track to landing a stable job that will pay my bills is the most important thing to me now. I truly don't have the energy to manage both.

I anticipate that I will post the next chapter on June 20th.

Finally, thank you thank you thank you to all of the kind people who have left comments on the chapters so far! Your thoughts and feedback mean more to me than I can say. I will reply to everything in my inbox within the next week.

Take care,  
-yfere


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